Fresh World Rally Champion Kalle Rovanperä has enough to export at the end of the World Championship season.
World champion Kalle Rovanperä travels to Japan for the last competition of the year. Vesa Pöppönen/AOP
The rally season will wrap up next week with the Japanese race, which will return to the calendar after a 12-year hiatus. The Toyota rally team represented by Rovanperä has been waiting a long time for its home race, as the return of the Japanese rally to the World Series was postponed by a couple of years due to the corona pandemic.
The competition is extremely important for Toyota, which gets to crown its amazing season in the car manufacturer’s homeland. The competition center is aptly located in the city of Toyota, which is named after the car brand.
Kalle Rovanperä is already traveling to Japan these days, even though there is still a good week until the start of the competition. The world champion’s program includes various performances and cat christenings.
– We go there really early for PR work, so it will be a long trip. We’ll have to see if we can take a little vacation after that before the Christmas rush, Rovanperä says.
Visit to Finland
Rovanperä’s first World Championship title was secured a month ago in New Zealand. Since then, Rovanperä hasn’t had much time to rest: the program has included a test of Toyota’s Rally1 car, a demonstration race in San Marino, and the World Rally Championship in Catalonia, where Toyota’s brand championship was secured.
Now the hardest trip of the year is ahead, which will last almost three weeks.
– I’ll probably stay there with my friend for another vacation. Let’s see how long it takes to relax, because there is so much work to do, says the driver who pushed Puuppola to become world champion.
After the trip to Japan, Rovanperä finally has time to pay a proper visit to his native Central Finland. At the end of the hectic year, one more work gig is known, because the city of Jyväskylä plans to organize a folk festival in December in honor of the championship of the boy from the home village.
But before that, you should still compete in the asphalt rally in Japan, which is a new acquaintance for the stars of the World Series.
– Japan is a really important race for the whole team. It’s a new rally and it seems quite difficult based on what I’ve heard and seen clips from previous years. There you can do normal work to get a decent result, Rovanperä, who won six World Championship competitions this year, estimates.
The recording of the World Rally Championship in Japan starts on Monday next week. The public special test that opens the competition is scheduled for Thursday, November 10.